Soccer camp! I’m in the middle and the blondie to my left is my twin seester –>

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Then at age nine a magical land I found

Of Wish, Wonder, Surprise, I soon became spellbound

My very first summer at Camp Augusta commenced

I spent my first week in Manzi 2 and from thence

I learned of a magic, made of Pirates and Trees

Of Archery and Capture the Flag, and Campfire Stories

I was one happy camper for seven lovely years

As I learned a few skills and I mastered a few fears

And the Counselors of Augusta, I always admired

Never dreaming that one day I’d also be hired!

Photos! Top left: My Oakie cabin from 2011. Top right: Beware, my friends, because that face is the last thing you will see before you are splattered with oatmeal this summer! Bottom: Here you can see the effects of a strange phenomenon that sometimes happens when you spend excessive time at camp and you slowly begin to turn into a little piece of camp yourself!

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My summers were lovely, round the campfire together

But in the rest of my life, I longed for adventure!

And so in September of the year I turned sixteen

I became an exchange student, in the country of Spain!

I moved to a town near the city of Madrid

With a Spanish host family for a year I did live

And in Spain I learned to let go of my attachments

Instead see the world full of possibility and enchantment

I also learned Spanish, and saw the futbol player Cristiano

I even spent one week hiking the Camino de Santiago

¡Fotos! Top: for those Quixote fans – my two families among the windmills of La-Mancha! Bottom: Left – I went to a public high school in Toledo, a veerry old city full of funny shops celebrating Spanish history. Right – The best week of the year was walking 100km of the Camino de Santiago. We never got lost because we knew we could follow the happy yellow arrows leading us straight to Santiago.